When Donald Trump began slurring his words severely during a speech yesterday, it wasn’t immediately clear if he was suffering from an issue with his teeth or an issue with his health. Pundits, the public, and even comedians have been debating the matter ever since. If it was caused by his teeth coming loose, why would a billionaire be wearing dentures instead of getting implants? If it wasn’t dentures, what is wrong with him? Today, the White House went and made it much worse.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders knew the question would be coming during today’s press briefing, so she made a statement about it. She blamed Trump’s slurring on a dry throat. She then inexplicably announced that Trump is going to get a physical from a military doctor. This is indeed how these things are supposed to work – but why on earth would she decide to make Trump’s health scandal even worse by bringing up the idea of him seeing a doctor? The entire point of her statement was supposed to have been to steer people away from the idea of this being a health issue for Trump.

This got me thinking. The wise answer would have been to simply blame it on a dry throat and move on. Bringing up a physical was a stupid move. But I can’t even figure out what the goal was. If Trump’s White House were trying to make the questions about his health go away, they’d have him take a physical tomorrow and immediately announced the results. Knowing them, they’d probably fake the results to hide anything that might be wrong with him. But they’d do it immediately nonetheless. Instead, they’re saying Trump will take a physical early next year.

Why? All this does is raise even more questions about Donald Trump’s health for the next few weeks. Maybe they’re banking on the idea that the media and the public will have moved on to the next scandal by early next year, and thus Trump never will have to take the physical. Maybe they know he’s in such swift decline that he won’t still be in office by early next year anyway. Or maybe they did this on purpose because they want people talking about Trump’s health, so he can resign for medical reasons right after the holidays. This is bizarre. All I know is that there has to be more to it, and there will be.